Preston Sturges S/D

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besides for the obviously classic, classic, classic "the lady eve" and "sullivan's travels" what's worth seeking out? there's a retrospective in chicago next month and i want to know what i should make every effort to catch.

Wow, I'm in the middle of a Sturges video binge at the mo. Actually, I saw my first so-so one last night, The Great McGinty -- otherwise, mostly classic, esp. Sullivan's Travels. Palm Beach is also pretty good.

IMHO, the second half of Lady Eve is a bit of a disaster compared to the first part. Actually, with the exception of Sullivan, all I've seen have been the curate's egg.

I've only seen 'Palm Beach Story', but it was a delight; Rudy Vallee's comedic timing was sublime, and I liked the other main actor, constantly exasperated, implicated in an insane sequence of events. The ale and quail society stuff on the train was possibly the most uproariously amusing part; a lunacy like The Marx Brothers. Was Claudette Colbert the lead actress, again? Very droll performance there.

I *need to see more* of his films, but the above is definitely a 'search' for anyone.

1. Miracle At Morgan's Creek - This is such a splendid, raunchy comedy with a great satirical bent. American society is lampooned repeatedly.

2. The Palm Beach Story - Anothere taboo topic. This sort of reminds me of "Some Like It Hot". I'm not entirely sure why. It might be the rich tycoon on a yacht. There are times (like the end) when you catch yourself saying, "No, they can't do this in a movie." Common sense is betrayed time and time again.

3. Hail The Conquering Hero - This definitely has moments of brilliance, but is definitely less cynical than "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek". It has a great campaign song, though, which will probably get stuck in your head. One of the joys of Sturges features is picking out all of the recurring stock players in each one. All three of these probably share ten of the same actors.

My grandma was born in 1928..Growing up, she went to the movies frequently. Right now, she seems to like romantic comedies (especially those Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks ones). Will she like any of these? If so, which ones?

well, basically search everything he ever did; I'm not crazy about everything he ever wrote, but I still watch the stuff which doesn't resonate with me just to watch the Preston Sturges Players in action and to marvel at the verbal prowess on display.

aside from that, The Great Moment is being slept on, both as a fascinating stylistic outlier for Sturges (it's a docudrama about the inventor of anesthesia, so it's not a gut-busting laff-a-thon like his straight-up comedies, although it still moves at breakneck speed) and as an opportunity for forensic cinematic analysis (the studio was understandably wary about the commercial prospects for a docudrama about such an obscure and disputed figure, so they sat on it until after he bolted for Fox, at which point they cut it to shit and released it).

honestly though, just get everything he ever directed - he's the Steely Dan of filmmakers in terms of quality output ratio. (I know there's a box set of barebones DVDs which covers everything he directed up to Unfaithfully Yours - I think mine cost like $45 second-hand from Amazon, which is a preposterously good bargain for what you get.) I'd extend this to the movies he wrote, too, but a lot of them are inexplicably hard to find - I spent years trying to find Diamond Jim only to resign myself to disappointment, and it gets cited as an influence on Citizen fucking Kane!

"I feel like Charlie Sheen is acting like a character in a Preston Sturges movie who HAS to convince the public he's crazy so he can get out of his hit show and marry his beautiful gal or something." -- a friend of mine gives a worthy observation about the Sheen mess.

I learned (or relearned) from the NYT obit of Norman Gimbel (songwriter of "Killing Me Softly" and TV themes) that he wrote lyrics for a Broadway musical version of Hail the Conquering Hero, starring Tom Poston in the Bracken role. Closed after 8 perfs in 1961. Book by Larry Gelbart!